Crude Oil Forecast August 21, 2015, Technical Analysis

Light Sweet Crude

The light sweet crude market bounce a little bit during the session after initially falling during the day on Thursday. This is a market desperately need some type of bounce, and the $40 level below should be massively supportive as the market is very technically oriented, and quite often offers support and resistance and the large, round, psychologically significant number such as $40. We believe that the bounce would be a potential short-term buying opportunity, but recognize that the $43 level above is probably going to be pretty resistive, and the $45 level above will most certainly be as well. We have no interest in buying this market for any real length of time, but short-term traders may be tempted to get involved. Quite frankly though, it is very difficult to trade against a trend that is this strong, so we will pass on that opportunity for the time being.

Brent

Brent markets fell during the course of the session on Thursday, dipping below the $47 level. Because of this, we ended up forming a hammer, which of course is a very bullish sign. We believe that a break above the top of the candle for the day should send this market looking for the $49 level, which was previously very supportive. That support should now become resistance. With that being the case, if we can trade short-term charts, we could get an opportunity to go long here for a couple of dollars. With this, the market will find resistance at the $49 level more than likely, so a resistive candle there would be a nice selling opportunity. On the other hand, if we can break above the $52 level, it would show a significant enough move in momentum to the upside in order to start going long and perhaps even look at a potential trend change. At this point in time, the petroleum markets are most certainly oversold, even though demand isn’t exactly strong either. A bounce is most definitely needed in order to find more sellers at this point.